


through a glass, darkly

by bubblewrapstargirl



Series: One Shots [23]
Category: Avengers: Age of Ultron - Fandom, Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gay Steve Rogers, Hallucinations, M/M, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 06:30:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3840598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblewrapstargirl/pseuds/bubblewrapstargirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>They stand in perfect harmony, the only two in a world that no longer exists.</i><br/>Missing scenes of Steve's vision in AOU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	through a glass, darkly

Peggy tells him to imagine it, to picture the life they could have had, but he can't. The truth is - he never could. There is only one person Steve has ever pictured walking through life with, and he is lost.

The dancehall is empty, all at once, the silence as oppressive as it is sudden. Steve shifts the axis of his gravity, feeling the weight of all his guilt settle along with his muscles. Peggy is gone with all the other spectres, but Steve is not alone; he feels the weight of eyes upon his back, and knows without turning who they will belong to.

Steve _can't_ turn; he won't face his greatest sorrow in this vivid technicolour waking-dream. He cannot turn because he has a job to complete, a team reliant on him, and if he turns, he will shatter, crumble and fall, and all the ruin that is left of him will drift away like ash on the wind.

"Won't you look at me, my love?" that blue-eyed, black-haired shade whispers, the cadence all wrong.

Bucky would never have spoken such words to him.

Steve was _punk_ when he was being stubborn; _babydoll, darlin', my best guy_ when he allowed himself to be swept into warm arms.

 _My love_ was only breathed into his hair when Bucky thought he was asleep, or delirious, or about to meet his Maker. But that Bucky is gone. Swept away like so much sand on the shore, lost to the tides of his fractured memory. 

Steve closes his eyes; pretends he doesn't hear measured steps, flinches away from the first cool touch of fingers kissing his skin. The hand retreats and then returns; a gentle palm to his cheek, the smooth sweep of a fingertip along his brow. Steve whimpers, feels the water brimming beneath his eyelids finally trickle free and scald his skin.

He opens his eyes, and drinks in the sight of a man that has not lived for seventy years.

Bright blue eyes twinkle at him below carefully coiffed hair, and a smile that tilts to one side that grows wider beneath Steve's gaze. He is so beautiful that it hurts to look at him, like the sun unfiltered.

"You're not real," Steve finally replies, loath though he is to admit it.

"I could be," the ghost insists, "If you stay."

Steve presses his lips together in a tight pinch to keep from howling. They stand in perfect harmony, the only two in a world that no longer exists.

"Make me real, Stevie." Bucky begs, the way he never did for anything in his whole life, save Steve.

But Steve shakes his head, finally dropping that penetrating gaze; unable to face all he has lost. All that he sacrificed through his arrogance and pride.

"I _can't_." Steve sobs, and feels like the worst kind of sinner, the hollowed out man.

When Bucky presses their lips together, Steve breaks; dragging him closer and folding him into his desperate embrace, as though he could ever be worthy of this love.

Then he remembers what remains of the man in his arms, and learns that a heart can break infinitely more than once.

**Author's Note:**

> For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.  
> ~1 Corinthians 13:12


End file.
